How reliable are eyewitnesses in a court case?

Answer 1

Not very. Eyewitness testimony consists of a human being's memory of his or her past observations and perceptions. Both memory and perceptiveness are unreliable. This kind of testimony is said to be responsible for more miscarriages of justice than any other factor in the legal system.

Answer 2

Certainly the eyewitness accounts in the Gospels are reliable. They correlate with each other and do not contradict. Opponents had the opportunity to refute them at the time but that did not happen. Eyewitnesses to the events in the Gospels were Matthew and John who travelled and lived with Jesus. Mark and Luke wrote down the eyewitness accounts of Jesus' disciples and family.

It depends on the person. This is why in court for example, the credibility of people claiming to be eyewitnesses is tested and different eyewitnesses are cross-examined and their testimonies compared against each other.

Some people have a reputation for being reliable while others may have a reputation for being either unreliable or downright deceptive.

In the case of the New Testament eyewitnesses who wrote about Jesus, or were the source for others who did not directly witness the events- these eyewitnesses have repeatedly proved their reliability in things which can be verified, so they are trustworthy in things which cannot be.

It is also worth noting that the many differences about insignificant details in the Gospel accounts do nothing to discredit them. They demonstrate the natural differences which occur when people see the same events through different eyes or seek to emphasize different things when telling about what they have seen. If they were all too similar a suspicion of collusion would arise. This is not the case.

Answer 3

In modern courts of law, eyewitnesses are sometimes found not to be reliable, for a whole range of reasons. No matter how well-intentioned a person may be, his or her recollection may be faulty, or the person's imagination may have subconsciously made things seem different than they really were. In other cases, eyewitnesses may have reasons for lying.

As this question was asked in a religious category, it also brings in to play the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus. If these were written by eyewitnesses, it would strengthen the case for his historicity and even for his divinity. However, no one claims that the author of the first gospel, Mark's Gospel, was an eyewitness. Even Christians who accept Papias' claim from around 130 CE, that Mark was the author of this gospel, acknowledge that Mark was not an eyewitness to the events he reported. It has also been shown that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were actually based on Marks Gospel - neither author could really have been an eyewitness. Finally, it has been shown that John's Gospel was largely based on Luke's Gospel, with some material taken directly from Mark's Gospel. So, none of the gospel authors was an eyewitness to events in the life of Jesus. This chain of dependency is one reason the gospel accounts appear somewhat similar, but it is also why they can not be regarded as reliable.

Answer 4

The fact that they can testify to the facts, OF THEIR OWN KNOWLEDGE.